A Scenario for our Male Apologists to Consider...

[_Yoda]

A revelation came from the Lord that your cherished beloved bride would be required to take another husband. Not only were you to support her, and approve of this, but you were to also be a supportive "brother husband" to this man who would share physical and emotional intimacies with your wife, who is your best friend, lover, and life partner. This "brother husband" would also be sharing your wife's bed, fathering her children, making life decisions with her.

And if you show any sign of jealousy, you are merely told to "suck it up" by other Church members. You just don't understand true faithfulness, and are simply weak. "Someday, you will understand what a blessed commandment this is, and it will all become clear to you."

If you dare....really put yourself in this position. Don't simply dismiss it because it is not the current reality.

Does this at least give you a glimpse as to why accepting plural marriage as an eternal law would be difficult for faithful LDS women to understand or deal with?

I would really appreciate your serious thoughts and discussion on this matter.

I'm new to this thread. I don't feel like reading through the whole thing.

Liz, this is a fair question. Especially considering the reality of Smith did in fact marry several women with living husbands. I don't get particularly excited over the idea of sharing my wife. It really helps bring empathy for the women who protest against polygamy. If polygamy is ever legalized I think women should be allowed multiple husbands. It's only fair.

One reality we need to accept is that some people feel the opposite of jealousy. Some people feel compersion and they want to share their spouse. I think it's pretty normal and common. Some men would (and do) get excited over the idea of sharing their wives. Isn't this why some people swing? They want to share!

If I felt like I had to share my wife I might be able to under two conditions.

1. I would have to feel like he is my best friend and sharing with him is not threatening or competitive.
2. He has to have a good job.

Under these criteria, who knows, I might even learn to enjoy sharing!

Thank you for your honest response. I really appreciate it.

I don't know. Maybe it is a default in me, but I just don't think I could get past knowing my husband was, not only sharing his bed with another woman, but sharing the kind of emotional intimacy we share. I think that I could get past the sex before I could get past the emotional tie. Does that make sense?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Am I the only one who advocates 100% equality with women on this forum? I know I'm a vulgar dude, but Christ... I don't see anyone stating that Men and Women should be equal.

- VRDRC

[_Cylon]

Madeleine and KevinSim, your conversation seems to be a pretty good illustration to me of how the God of the Bible is either inconsistent and sometimes mean-spirited, or else just a conception of human beings whose traits change based on what people believe to be expedient at the time (my vote's on the latter).

As for the OP, even as a believer, I would have said no friggin' way my wife could take another husband. Then again, if I had gotten a commandment to to take another wife I would have said no friggin' way to that also. It's hard enough building a healthy, romantic, intimate relationship with just one other person, to try to do that with multiple people at one time seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

Cam, I'm with you on men and women being equal, but I don't know why you think no one else in this thread holds that view. The OP used a hypothetical unequal situation to prove a point.

[_SteelHead]

Again.... While I find no where in the Bible where god commands polygamy, I also find no condemnation of it. Knowing that it was practiced by the patriarchs, and is not condemned I find it hard to say that it is not allowed in a biblical framework.... Scriptura Sola, legalism, and all that jazz...

I am not a polygamist, nor do I play one on tv, nor do I ever plan on being one..... But I fail to see why any biblical believer is so opposed to it.

Mary who you like, in whatever combination of pieces and parts, as long as they consent and are of a reasonable age.... 21?

[_KevinSim]

Kevin,

I don't understand why you're wasting all your mental energy on defending plural wifery. It's already been clearly demonstrated on this thread that plural husbandry is in your future.

Yes, by Spektical referring to an article by SteveP that begins:

couple of disclaimers about this post. First, the following estimations are just extra-fancy back-of-the-envelope calculations. They have not been subject to peer review and should not be taken as a rigorous analysis. I can tell you now the analysis is as full of mistakes as my text is spelling errors and I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to find them both. The post is meant more along the lines of “Wow: Here is something to think about.” Also, I published this for 8 hours in August and several people pointed out that this had all been done before by the Committee on Celestial Demographics in Dialogue. My numbers, methods, and sources are a little different than theirs. Why am I publishing this now? Peer pressure.

SteveP's fourth paragraph says:

First, let’s crunch the numbers and and take a stab at estimating how many people have died before the age of eight and the sex ratio of those people. How can we do that? Do I have the gift of prophecy? No! I do what I’ve always done—make a few assumptions and then use real math to make wild predictions! People throw money at me in the form of grants to do this all the time.

Later on he says:

Current practices in some large populations may make this inequality worse because currently in the world there are an estimated 100 million females missing demographically from a combination of abortion, infanticide, and childbirth death. This sexual imbalance is projected to get much worse in the coming decades in some regions of the world where male children are more valued than female children. Since abortion is replacing infanticide in China and India, and because females are terminated much more frequently in these developing nations, it means that more males will be born and because of the high male infant death rate, it is going to produce an even greater number males ending up dying before the age of accountability than females (BYU professor Valerie Hudson is studying this). So while my numbers really are derived from pre 20th Century, things are only getting more unequal as is the ratio of males to females dying before age eight.

So he admits that his calculations might be wrong.

And then later on he says the fact that Asian parents aborted so many female babies will make things more imbalanced in the male direction in the Celestial Kingdom. What he doesn't notice is that although a large number of male babies die before the age of eight, an even larger number of female babies die because they're getting aborted. Those female babies are going to end up in the Celestial Kingdom too.

The bottom line is that I have most definitely not had it "demonstrated on this thread that plural husbandry is in" my future.

[Guest]

The bottom line is that I have most definitely not had it "demonstrated on this thread that plural husbandry is in" my future.

But would you live it if the Prophet told you God required it?
(And remember, the Church teaches you to make clear moral decisions well in advance of being faced with a dilemma. E.g. Decide you are not going to drink alcohol before going to a college party rather than waiting until you get there to think about it.)

[_LDSToronto]

Hold up. Madeleine, marriage had nothing to do with murder, but that isn't the question. The question is, and always has been, if God can, and has, sidestepped his own commandment with regard to murder,

Can't say I'm in agreement with your assessment.

how is it implausible that he wouldn't set aside another of his commandments, such as 'thou shalt not commit adultery'? And, before you say polygamy is adultery, why is it not possible for God to say polygamy is not adultery? After all, God-ordered killing is not murder, right?

Because God is not fickle. Or, maybe the Mormon God is. God is not the author of sin, and does not command sin. Very clearly explained in the Bible.

You seem to think this is an unlikely scenario, but to me, and others, it seems very likely, given God has a track record of setting aside the murder commandment, and even approving of concubines.

H.

I'd say, humans have a tendency to put themselves at the center. To talk themselves into believing sin is not really sin. "God is OK with it this time." Especially in the Mormon context of "feeling". Sin doesn't always feel bad.

Self-deception. It does exist in the Bible stories. Humans are human. God is perfect. What I see are people trying to ascribe human frailty to God. Which, is understandable in a Mormon context, but it is not in a Christian context.

Madeleine, you are skirting around the point. It's very simple:

1. God has killed people and commanded others to kill people. Yet the commandments say, 'Thou shalt not murder'. You say when God does this, it is not murder.

2. This follows the pattern: God has done X and has commanded others to do X. Yet the commandments say, 'Thou shalt not do X'. You say when God does X, it is not really X, it is Y.

3. Why can't this be applied to polygamy? Why can't God order people to engage in polygamy? God is God, so can't he say, 'Polygamy is not adultery?', sort of like you claimed that God ordered killing isn't murder?

It's very simple, yet you seem to want to say that polygamy is adultery and it could never be a command because:

1. Mormons are wrong
2. God would never command it
3. People want to justify sin

I don't think you can rightly claim any of these.

H.

[_Chap]

I think one has to consider a vital point here in discussing God's intentions with a Roman Catholic.

In the same way that LDS can refer to the teachings of prophets as expressing God's will on any matter, the 'teaching magisterium' of the Roman Catholic church gives an authoritative interpretation of all issues involving the understanding of scripture, and the solution to moral problems. It is essentially the line resulting from that authority that Madeleine seems to be playing back to us here.

I am not criticizing - just describing.

[_Yoda]

The bottom line is that I have most definitely not had it "demonstrated on this thread that plural husbandry is in" my future.

But would you live it if the Prophet told you God required it?
(And remember, the Church teaches you to make clear moral decisions well in advance of being faced with a dilemma. E.g. Decide you want drink alcohol before going to a college party rather than waiting until you get there to think about it.)

Drifting is right, though. The OP isn't about convincing anyone that plural husbandry is in your future. It is presenting a hypothetical that I would like a sincere answer to. My main purpose in creating the OP was to really allow the TBM men search in their hearts and think about what they are asking their wives, and women in the Church, to accept as eternal law via D&C 132.

[_MCB]

the 'teaching magisterium' of the Roman Catholic church gives an authoritative interpretation of all issues involving the understanding of scripture, and the solution to moral problems.

Trying to understand God's intent in scripture, with a scripture alone perspective, is like trying to apply the US Constitution isolated from the context of the precedents set by the judicial system. Mormons do both and come up with bizarre conclusions in both situations.